China defends COVID-19 data-sharing as WHO seeks more access

BEIJING (Reuters) -China has shared the most COVID-19 data and research results in the international community, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after the World Health Organization repeated its call for more information and access.

China is also the only country that organised experts to share traceability progress with the WHO on many occasions, Mao Ning, spokesperson at the foreign ministry, told a regular news conference.

In a statement on Monday, the WHO again asked China to share data and access to assist its efforts to understand the origins of COVID-19, the first cases of which were detected in central China five years ago.

According to the WHO, over 760 million COVID-19 cases and 6.9 million deaths have been recorded worldwide. In mid-2023, it declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency but said the disease should be a permanent reminder of the potential for new viruses to emerge with devastating consequences.

Data from the early days of the pandemic was uploaded by Chinese scientists to an international database in early 2023, a few months after China dismantled all its COVID-19 restrictions and reopened its borders to the rest of the world.

The data showed DNA from multiple animal species - including raccoon dogs - was present in environmental samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, suggesting that they were "the most likely conduits" of the disease, according to a team of international researchers.

In 2021, a WHO-led team spent weeks in and around Wuhan - where the first cases were detected - and said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed.

China had said no more visits were necessary and that the search of early cases should be conducted in other countries.

"On the issue of COVID-19 traceability, China has shared the most data and research results and made the greatest contribution to global traceability research," Mao said.

"WHO's international experts have repeatedly said that during their visit to China, they went to all the places they wanted to go and met all the people they wanted to see."

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill and Barbara Lewis)

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